Linguistics and the Study of Language
Student Name: Nadia Kaabneh
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 3
Phonology:............................................................................................................................................ 4
Morphology.......................................................................................................................................... 5
Syntax..................................................................................................................................................... 6
Semantics.............................................................................................................................................. 7
Phonetics............................................................................................................................................... 8
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Introduction
Language is used by people all over the world as a means of communication, it is
a semiotic system that has to do with the study of signs and symbols as elements
of communicative behavior. Sign systems are present everywhere; clocks, signs
on the road and pictograms are all components of sign systems. The difference
between sign systems and language is the complexity of the latter. This is why
language signs have deeper internal structures than regular signs (Wagner ,2017).
Language allows people to express every thought that they have and the number
of signs that one individual can produce is endless. Some scholars debate whether
or not language is infinite but it is evident that language allows individuals to
understand and express a large amount of information all because of the existence
of language (Wagner ,2017).
Linguistics is related to the nature of language and communication, it is
concerned with both the study of a certain language and searching for the general
properties that are similar in all languages or a cluster of languages, it is
considered to be the science of language which encompasses sounds, words and
rules of grammar, the words in a language are finite but sentences are not. The
creative nature of the human languages is differentiates it from the language of
animals which mainly respond to stimuli (Kracht, 2007)
Every human being knows or is familiar with at least one language whether
spoken or signed. The rules of any language are learned when an individual
acquires a language. These rules are phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics
and phonetics .
The purpose of this research paper is to talk about the various aspects of
linguistics. By defining and discussing the five main levels of linguistics, the
paper will contain a broad area of knowledge in this field. Furthermore, the paper
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will give brief examples on each of the five levels in order to clarify the meaning
of each one.
Phonology:
In linguistics, phonology is related to the way sounds operate within a certain
language. Moreover, it operates on a level of sound systems and sound units.
Phonology is a wide and diverse field and it does not end at simply knowing the
sound of a language. The importance of phonology is shown through the ability of
changing one word into another by simply changing one sound.
An example of that would be taking two words that sound similar 'time' and
'dime'. The aspect that distinguishes them is the first sound, the letters t and d
therefore can change the meaning of words and hence are called contrasting
sounds. Those sounds are distinctive in the English language and all distinctive
sounds are called phonemes.
In phonology, all productions are the same sound within the language's inventory
of phenoms, therefore even if the pronunciation of the letter 'p' comes out slightly
different every time it is said, the actual sound remains the same. Below are the
key properties of phonology that will be discussed in detail in order to gain a
broad understanding of this level in linguistics (Wagner ,2017).
Assimilation: sounds becoming more like neighboring sounds which in
turn allows for the ease of pronunciation. Such as, vowels are nasalized
prior to nasal consonants.
Harmony: vowels that are non-adjacent become similar by sharing one
feature of a set of features (common in the Finnish language).
Gemination: the sound becomes identical to an adjacent sound.
Regressive Assimilation: the concept of sound that is on the left is the
target whereas the sound on the right is the trigger.
Dissimilation: sounds becoming less like neighboring sounds, this case is
quire rare.
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Other properties in phonology are also present, such as deletion, syncope,
aphaeresis, lenition, meathesis and more. However, due to complexity they will
not be further discussed in the research paper.
Morphology
The study of the internal structure of words which forms a significant part of
linguistics. The term itself is Greek and is made up of the word morph (shape) and
ology (the study of something). In order to understand morphology, one must first
understand the core concepts that make up the term.
Word is the smallest independant unit of language, it does not depend on the
presence of other words, can exist separately from other words and is flexible to
change in position. Therefore, words are considered independant and smallest
units of languages because they are the only units that may exist on their own
(Kracht, 2007).
Morphemes are the building blocks of morphology, it is important to understand
that words have internal structures which means they are made up of even smaller
units.
Simple Words: lack internal structure which means that they are only
made up of one morpheme (ex: build). These words cannot be broken
down into smaller parts due to the fact that they will start lacking meaning.
Complex Words: internal structure is present and consists of two or more
morhpemes which are added to the basic form of the noun (ex: builder –
affix –er).
Free morpheme: simple word which consists of one morpheme (ex:
house).
Bound morpheme: morphemes that should be attached to another
morpheme in order to create meaning.
Ex: unkindness (UN and NESS are the bound morphemes in this case as
they require the root of the word KIND in order to form another word).
Those are called affixes as they must be attached to the stem.
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There are two types of affixes:
Prefix (beginning) : UN
Suffix (End): NESS
Syntax
When it comes to speaking, people choose the words that need to be combined in
order to express ideas and concepts. There are infinite number of possible
sentences that can be created but there are only a small number of ways in which
words can be combined. This is due to the fact that sentences have certain
structures, a fixed order of words instead of a fixed order for the words
themselves.
Every word in a language falls into a specific category, the categories remain
relatively fixed but words are flexible and are placed in different categories.
Example of such categories are:
Determiner: the word chosen to be put in this category would depend on
the meaning that needs to be expressed, is the entity that is being spoken
about specific or abstract? Words put into this category are 'The', 'A' and
other small nounds.
Noun: the words that can be put into this category come from an enormous
list depending on what idea the speaker wants to convey. Ex: Cat, Dog,
Man and House.
Tense: describes an event that is either currently happening, in the past or
may happen in the future. Words in this category are future tense 'will' or
models such as 'can' and 'should'. These words are all related in some form
when an action occurs.
Verb: a word that describes an event. This is the word that would describe
what action the noun should do. Words such as 'Run' or 'Remember' are
put into this category.
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Preposition: shows the place where the action is going to take place. 'In'
and 'at' are two set of options that can be used to create the link.
By looking at the above categories, it can be seen that the study of syntax is the ways
in which word categories are combined and ordered. It is the role of a syntactician to
describe how people use language.
Semantics
Semantics looks at the various relationships in language and how these
relationships were created which is crucial in order to understand how language
functions as a whole. By understanding how meaning occurs in language, one can
be informed on how speakers acquire a sense of meaning. Moreover, semantics is
also informated by other sub-disciplines of linguistics for example morphology.
Semantics also observes the different ways in which words are related to one
another, below are some of the ways in which words may be semantically related:
Synonymy: words that can be used to mean the same thing. Ex: Big and
Large.
Antonymy: words that are the opposite of one another. Ex: Big and Small.
Polysemy: when a word is polysemous then it has two or more related
meanings, it may take on one form but may be used to mean two different
things. Ex: Mouse (the animal) Mouse (computer hardware).
Homophony: refers to a single form of word with two meanings, however
a word is considered to be a homophone when two meanings are
completely unrelated to one another. Ex: Bat (animal) Bat (Sports
equipment).
Sentences can also be semantically related to each other in several ways.
Pharaphrase: sentences have the same truth conditions, if one form is true
then so is the other one.
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Mutual entailment: each sentence must be true in order for the other one to
also be true.
Asymmetrical entailment: only one sentence must be true in order for the
other to be true. However in this case only one sentence may be true
without having the other one to be true.
Contradiction: one sentence is true and the other one is not.
Phonetics
It is a branch of linguistics that focuses on the production and the classification of
the speech sounds. The production of speeh is based on the interaction between
various vocal organs for example the teeth, lips and tongue in order to develop
sounds.
The International Phonetic Alphabet, is a framework that uses a single symbol to
describe each separate sound in the language and can be found in dictionaries and
in textbooks all over the world. For example, the noun ‘fish’ has four letters, but
the IPA presents this as three sounds: f i ʃ, where ‘ʃ’ stands for the ‘sh’ sound.
Phonetics has many applications, it is used in forensic investigations when
attempting to work on who's voice is behind a recording. Another use of phonetics
is learning or teaching a new language.
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References
[Link]. (2012). What does semantics study? – All
About Linguistics. [online]
[Link]. (2013). What Does Syntax Study? – All About
Linguistics. [online]
Wagner (2017). Introduction to Linguistics. [online] [Link].
Kracht, M. (2007). Introduction to Linguistics. [online] [Link].